


Those Blissful Years

by katerzzz



Category: Victoria (TV)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Loving Marriage, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Other, Parent-Child Relationship, Widowed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 07:38:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8135782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katerzzz/pseuds/katerzzz
Summary: William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, has learned a lot from the rooks. But he has equally learned as much from a long and colourful life. He has loved, certainly, yet he did not know that he would be given the opportunity to love again. But is a second chance more rewarding than the memories and gains of that first great love, and the memories of those blissful years?





	

**Author's Note:**

> I, like many, fell in love with Rufus Sewell's portrayal of Lord Melbourne. Sensitive, intelligent and human, he is by far the best Melbourne I've ever seen on-screen (believe me, I've seen a LOT). He struck me as a man capable of great love and great loss, and so I decided to sprinkle a bit of fiction into his family life, and allow him a retrospective happiness with his now dead wife, and their children, the youngest of whom he shares a special and intrinsic bond with. Set after THAT scene at Brocket Hall in S01x03. Lord Melbourne and Queen Victoria belong to history, the excerpts from the show to ITV, and the original characters mentioned (listen below) belong to myself;
> 
> Lady Louisa Lamb (1786-1826) - William Lamb's wife. Daughter of the Duke of Cleveland.  
> The Hon. Emma Lamb (1811 -) William and Louisa's eldest surviving daughter.  
> The Hon. Christopher Lamb (1814 - 1821) William and Louisa's second surviving son. Died in a drowning incident at Brocket Hall aged seven.  
> The Hon. Dorothy Lamb (1824 -) William and Louisa's youngest child.

**Those Blissful Years**

August.  
Some years ago.

_"Oh, come now. Shhh. Shh. Shh. Hush now, hush now, shh shh shh."' William soothed the tiny bundle in his arms a little more gently, gazing down at his newly born daughter with hooded eyes "There's no need for quite so much noise, my darling. Shh now. Shhh."_

_"Should I vacate the bed and leave you and she to have a moment alone?" William looked up and smiled at his wife, who was sat propped up against fresh pillows in the bed. She smiled as William crept across the carpet towards her, a sheepish grin on his face. He settled down on the mattress alongside her, his right arm carefully wrapped around the baby's body whilst his left reached across the sheets for his wife's._

_"No," William's voice was quiet as he continued to stare down at the tiny baby "No, you are obviously most welcome." He tightened his fingers around those of his wife, smiling and chuckling softly to himself as the baby gave a wide yawn._

_Louisa Lamb watched her husband with wide eyes that twinkled with happiness, in spite of their obvious exhaustion. She smiled softly, blinking slowly before asking with a gentle voice "Are you pleased? With her?"_

_William turned to look at her, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Pleased?" He echoed her, his voice barely a whisper "Am I pleased?" He paused and looked back at the baby, nodding slowly "What sort of a question is that? Of-of course-" he felt his throat constrict and tighten as his emotions crept to the surface "Of course I am pleased! I-I am more then pleased, my darling, I - I am simply overjoyed! Af-after all I have put you through I-I never thought-" he hung his head and sighed heavily, feeling tears pool in the corners of his eyes "I-I could-I would-I-I do not-." Feeling her hand tighter over his, he looked back up at Louisa, his voice hoarse "Thank you."_

_Louisa gave a wide smile, her own eyes threatening tears as she asked again "And you-you do not mind that she is a little girl? Th-that she will not replace Christopher?"_

_"I do not," William smiled at her, entwining his fingers properly with hers. He let out a sob, disguising it as a slight chuckle "I-I do not-I-no-no! She is utter perfection, Louisa, and I thank you-I-I thank-I thank you-I thank you a thousand times." He smiled down at the baby, now happily asleep against her father's shirt "I did not-I-I did not want a child who could replace Christopher." He looked up again at his wife, his smile sad "I-no-he cannot be replaced! He is our little boy and he cannot be replaced. Ju-just as little William and-and our-and our precious daughter can also never be replaced-"_

_He looked up to see his Louisa's expression faltering, and moved across the bed to be closer to her "Oh, my darling," he took Louisa's face gently as she began to cry, her silent tears falling for her two dead children. "Oh, my darling, do not cry. This is not the time for tears of sadness but for tears of joy," he smiled at her despite his own wealth of emotion, and then kissed her tenderly, closing his eyes as he did so. His body trembled as he moulded his lips to hers, feeling her reach up and take his face "There now, Louisa, there now, do not-do not cry. There is no reason to cry-"_

_Louisa swallowed tightly and wrapped her arms around her husband's broad shoulders, kissing him again and again and again, as if the more she loved him then the more the pain of the memories of her dead children would subside. She clung to him, resting her forehead against his and sobbing once. She managed to smile, stroking his chin and whispering "I-I do not-I-I will not." She swallowed again "No-no more tears. No-not for painful memories."_

_"No," William murmured softly, nuzzling her nose with his and kissing her lips chastely "We have our babies. We have our children, and we will cherish them-I will cherish you! I-I should have-I-I should have been more attentive to you-I-I should have worshipped you-I-"_

_"Enough, William, enough," Louisa whispered, fluttering a kiss over his lips "You are here now and that is all that matters. That is all that has ever mattered to me. That you are here." Her hands tightened over his shirt and she paused, her breath faltering as she murmured "Are you happy? Now? With me?"_

_"Yes."_

_"Yes?"_

_"Yes!" William insisted, his whisper pitched as he kissed her face repeatedly, tears beginning to swell at the corner of his eyes "Yes! I am happy! I have never been as happy as I am with you! Yes!" He disguised a sob as he cleared his throat "Nothing could ever make me happier than spending my life with you."_  
  
_A loud, impatient wail interrupted William as he spoke, and Louisa laughed as she and her husband moved apart to see their tiny, newly born infant begin to writhe around in her father's arms for food. "Oh, my dear little thing, have you had quite enough of our speaking, hmm?" She chuckled gently, moving back against the pillows as William carefully handed her the baby "Hmm?" She ran her finger down the little baby's chubby cheek and smiled broadly, watching her husband for a moment longer as he stood from the bed "Come," Louisa reached out with her hand "Come, William, stay with me. There is nowhere you need to be quite yet."_

_Smiling, William took her hand, entwining his fingers with hers again and kissing the palm of her hand. He settled down beside her, drawing his wife back to him, his chest fit to burst with pride as he watched his wife and daughter._

"Lou-Louisa-Louisa," William murmured quietly in his sleep, twitching beneath the sheets as he lay in the darkened bedroom "Louisa!". Brocket Hall was the only place he ever found enough peace of mind to sleep properly, the combined stresses of parliament and premiership tiring his already fatigued senses. He twitched again, his eyelids fluttering open, his eyes heavy with sleep as the memories of those most recent words spoken in the grounds earlier today, by the incognito young monarch, still played over and over again in his head.

> _“In the beginning, I thought you were the father I’d never had. But now I feel, I know, that you are the only companion I could ever desire.”_

Closing his eyes tightly and cursing himself, William ran a hand over his ageing and weary face. Of course he felt a connection to the young queen! He was her Prime Minister and so there had to be an element of kinship! He admired and respected her as the symbol of new monarchy which she represented but that was quite it! She could not expect him to say anything but what he did! And how dare she, he thought, come to him on his estate, in a place where he had been so intoxicatingly happy with his wife, and declare her love for him. How dare she decry how Louisa, his sweet, beautiful Louisa, had treated him in the wake of his infidelities and indiscretions. And how could she think such things of him?! He was old enough to be her father! Two of his three daughters were older than she!

> _"I am a man, Ma'am. And like all men I am susceptible to flattery."_

But then, of course, his own words - spoken just weeks ago - contradicted him. His eyes having finally adjusted to the dark, William pushed himself up and sat back against the headboard, his emotions whirring. Did he truly have feelings for the Queen? Had eleven years of suppression of any loving notion - except for the most carnal sexual desire each man possessed - finally fractured upon the introduction of a physically diminutive, self-assured, slightly stubborn teenage girl? He sniffed and reached across to the night stand for the box of matches kept there. Had he found a new Louisa? No. He had to stop himself. No, of course he hadn't found a new Louisa. Louisa was not something that could be replaced, and certainly not with a girl young enough to be her daughter. As the flame at the end of the match he held caught the wick of the candle and breathed life into the darkened room, William remembered his words to her that afternoon.

> _“Did you know that rooks mate for life? Every year they build their nests together and renew all those little civilities that make a marriage sparkle…..if I had spent more times watching the rooks, my wife would have felt more attended to.”_
> 
> _“Like a rook, I mate for life”_

William could remember all those moments he'd shared with his beloved wife in that very spot so many years before. The time when she had agreed to marry him, under the watchful eye of her maiden aunt. When she had told him, on a cold winter's afternoon, that she was expecting another child - a child who would be born that summer and christened Emma - after five years of tragedy. When she had jokingly told him, pregnant again with their daughter in 1818, that he had preferred the company of the rooks to her. He chuckled softly to himself; as he had said earlier that day, if he had preferred to sit studying the rooks then she might not have felt so utterly neglected and betrayed by him. Because he would not have betrayed her as he did.

> _"She should never have treated you so cruelly. I would never do such a thing."_

And of course, what the Queen had told him had been wrong. He had never told her - he had never properly told anyone - how he had broken his wife's heart. She treated him cruelly, coldly, with an air of aristocratic defiance that had surprised and awed him, but it had been entirely justified. Sophia, born just two months after her father's revelations, was meant to have been the couple's last child. For the next three years, their marriage had been taut and strained, until the tragic death of their youngest son had drawn them back to one another. Another two miscarriages had followed in 1822 and 1823, before Louisa finally fell pregnant with Dorothy.

"Oh, for those blissful happy years," William sighed softly to himself, toying with the collar of his nightshirt and looking up as he heard the floorboards in the adjoining hallway creak "Who's there?" He called, making to move from the bed.

The closed door opened a crack, and the familiar face of Dorothy appeared "It is only me, Papa." She pushed the door open a little further, her flannel nightgown and long, fair hair making her appear quite angelic as she stood there "I only came to see if the rumours were true."

William's blood ran cold. What rumours did she mean? He tensed for a moment. Had those salacious rumours, spread mostly by the rival Tory faction and stirred up by their baying newspapers, that he was conducting an affair with the Queen reached Dorothy's ears? Was he about to lose his darling daughter? He swallowed and peered at her, smiling "What rumours, my darling?"

"The rumours that you still sleep in a bed when you are here at Brocket and you've not brought your chair with you from Dover House," Dorothy smiled as she moved into the bedroom and closed the door behind her, thankfully ignorant of the relief which washed over her father's face. "And I am happy to see that they are true."

"Indeed they are, my darling girl," William sat back, opening his arms for his daughter as she climbed up onto the bed and leant into him, burying her head into his chest and clutching at the material of his nightshirt "This is perhaps the only place where I ever sleep fully."

Dorothy chuckled gently "Emma says if Mama were still alive then she'd never allow you to keep such bad habits."

"And Emma is quite right, your mother would not," William wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead "She would ensure that I had at least fallen asleep in my chair by one in the morning." He chuckled gently, brushing her hair away from her eyes "And speaking of that, you should have been asleep some time ago."

"Was this the bed you shared with Mama?" Dorothy ignored her father, staring up at him with wide eyes. At fourteen, Dorothy was inquisitive and intelligent, but she still acutely felt the loss of her mother, especially in comparison with her older sisters and brother, who could each remember Louisa. She always asked questions relating to her mother, and was so often despondent when they were not answered by her father as fully or with as much detail as she would like. It hurt William, often, to speak of Louisa, especially to the one person who was entitled to know as much about her as there was to know.

Deciding, on this occasion, to answer his daughter fully, William nodded "Yes, it was," he peered at her "I would sometimes lie awake at night watching her sleep, quite unable to believe how lucky I was in having her." He paused for a moment and then gestured across to one of the sash windows, where moonlight filtered through the gauze curtain "Can you see over there, where the window is? When you were newly born, your mother had you sleep in a cradle over by that spot."

"Why?"

"Well, she liked to be close to you. It was something she'd done for each of you, with the help of a nursemaid and attendant in the adjoining room," William again gestured, this time to the closed door of the dressing room. He sighed "You would sleep in your cradle, and you were a light sleeper, I remember. And there were nights, when I would be woken by some anxiety or some trouble, and your mother would be sat on the chaise with you in her arms. Her smile as she gazed down at you," William sighed and drew a hand over her face "It was as if we had been blessed by the most perfect angel." He stared down at Dorothy and sighed "I shall never forget those nights . Nor what she would sing to you."

“What did she used to sing?”

“It was an Irish lullaby, if I remember rightly, that her own nurse used to sing to her as a girl,” William entwined his hand with his daughter’s and kissed her palm. He paused to stare at Dorothy for a little longer, smiling down at her “It must have been a rather good one as it made all of you fall asleep when you were babies.” He pressed his lips against her forehead “She would have been so very proud of you.”

“And are you proud of me, Papa?”

William peered down at her, a smile etching itself across his face “I am proud of you, Dorothy. I could not be prouder.”

Dorothy smiled up at her father, her hand curling over his nightshirt "I am glad, Papa. So glad," she laid her head back over his chest "I feel closer to her, you know, when I am here."

"And so you should, because this is where you were happiest, in her arms, gurgling away as she sang to you" William whispered, gazing down at her. He waited a moment longer before chuckling "Come now, you are far too old to be found in Papa's bed. Away with you." He tapped her shoulder, watching as she climbed down "Back to your own bed with you now."

Dorothy smiled broadly, leaning forward and kissing William's cheek "You will walk with me tomorrow and hear my prose?"  
"Certainly, I will," William smiled "It shall make a welcome change to the tiresome words thrown at me from the opposition benches!" He chuckled, watching as Dorothy left the bedroom, pulling the door ajar.

He sighed and lay himself back down, linking his fingers over his chest. "Oh, for those blissful years," he murmured to himself, staring up at the canopy of the bed. He swallowed audibly, remembering the words he had spoke to Her Majesty that very same day.

> _"When you give your heart it will be without hesitation."_

And when William Lamb had done so, all those years ago, he had not regretted it for a single moment of those blissful happy years.

 


End file.
